


defining a life by full stops and him

by zvyozdochka



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2016!phan, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dan and Phil Go Outside, Friends to Lovers, Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, The Amazing Book Is Not on Fire, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, but its happy don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvyozdochka/pseuds/zvyozdochka
Summary: The book is a window, of sorts, framing your life in neat margins and a mess of brainstorming sheets. It’s easier to see in from the outside, and memories that had faded into a comfortable, if bewildering, wallpaper, are cast into stark relief. You can see, in black and white, how two entities came to be danandphil, and you will be honest with yourself as you try to be in these matters: it is quietly terrifying.





	defining a life by full stops and him

**Author's Note:**

> i originally wrote this in march, 2017, after i finally read TABINOF thanks to my bro- where would i be without you pal? so i hope you enjoy it, as outdated as it in in the face of,, 2017 in general?

It’s hard to write down years of history, your life entwining with his day by month by steady year. You think this is, perhaps, the best and hardest thing you’ve ever had to do.

You rethink that. Perhaps not.

It’s a different kind of hard to the faltering steps of his uni days and the tired smiles of keeping up appearances, though. Things have changed since then, and you can realise it with a smile, now. Your fringe is less square, your voice is louder, your eyes are brighter, your audience is less cringe- and so are you. The world is kinder, now. Never perfect, but on chilly nights wrapped in soft blankets and the glow of your laptop and the flash of the Tetris lamp off of Phil’s glasses, you think it’s pretty close.

The book is a window, of sorts, framing your life in neat margins and a mess of brainstorming sheets. It’s easier to see in from the outside, and memories that had faded into a comfortable, if bewildering, wallpaper, are cast into stark relief. You can see, in black and white, how two entities came to be _danandphil_ , and you will be honest with yourself as you try to be in these matters: it is quietly terrifying.

Because, whilst there is an entire world within the window pane of the book, there’s so much outside it, too, and how do you even whittle down what feels like a lifetime with Phil into a couple hundred pages?

At first, you had thought you’d have the opposite problem. You’d thought there wasn’t much to you- Phil, sure, but not you. Llamas, maltesers, silly skits and opinions on the internet; this is what you were known for. 

It was only a few weeks in before you realised that you’d written pages upon pages of planning and you had all these ideas and you wondered if Phil would mind a guide to making him smile, and you wondered if you should even bring up the video you try not to think about. You'd mind, you think, and delete them, but not before your brain, the flighty thing it is, latches onto something else.

Do you talk about the earliest days? The very first time you met, the Skype sessions, the texts, the tweets, do you talk about any of it? 

You tap the keys idly, not pressing hard enough to do anything but make noise. Phil looks over, face pulled into the silent curiosity of his, and you quirk your lips, watch him smile back and poke your leg and turn back to whatever inane reality show he’s watching this time. It was not always this simple with you, because you are both human, and you have bad days, but the years have been kind, kinder than you deserve. 

So you write the book, and in every letter, every curlicue and every full stop, there’s a measure of yourself. Phil’s hand is throughout it all, as it is in everything, every aspect of your lives, and likewise, your hand in his. And it is hard, so hard, because with every window you view it through, all you can see is _we_ and _our_ and _home home home_ , and it is everything you could be and everything you are not.

 

 

 

 

There was something up with Dan, Phil knew. Not necessarily bad, but thoughtful, quieter. Settled. He would be more worried if Dan wasn’t so happy all the time, if every exhausted smile didn’t light something like adoration in his chest. 

He wondered, or used to, anyway, about how long Dan would stay. He remembered the early days of hero worship and the whirl of romance, and of the uncomfortable tightness in his throat when Dan looked at him with doe-soft eyes and tilted his head, peering out from under his fringe. Back then, Dan was something so precious, to be protected and loved, and eighteen was so young for Phil’s 22 but it was _Dan_ and Phil couldn’t bring himself to stay away.

The internet often forgets how selfish he can be. He likes to think that he’s grown up, since, but he knows in the hollows of his soul that Dan was and had always been the exception. Phil Lester is a man who falls hard and fast and strong- he has been from day one, and Dan knows this, he thinks. Knows that that December, only a few months after they had met in person for the very first time, he had loved Dan, knows that he tried so hard not to come on too strong, knows that he had fallen apart for him. And it was selfish, and it was objectively questionable, and if he was a more moral person, perhaps he would never have kissed the impressionable fan the day they first met. But he is not, and was not, because it was _Dan_.

He shakes his head, refocuses. He used to wonder if Dan would stay, and to be honest with himself, he still does. Back then it was uncertainty, himself too far in love and Dan infatuated, _would it work would they work were they too young did dan feel the same way_. Now, years on, it was a low level shiver when Dan grinned too brightly at a waiter in Starbucks, faltering mid sentence when he saw Dan’s awkward self attempt his old _look up with big eyes through the fringe_ that he used to use on Phil at a girl working at BBC. He was too tall for it to work anymore, and Phil ended up snorting with laughter, waving off the curious looks of the people he was talking to.

See, the thing was, Phil was a man who fell hard and fast and strong, and at his heart he was loyal and determined. So he watches the years tick by and himself grown older next to Dan and the only regret he has is that he’s settled down, with Dan, but he’s not _settled down with Dan_.

But he doesn’t worry as much anymore, and it’s the book, with all it’s stress and anxiety and sleepless nights, that he has to thank. Because Phil is a jealous man, a selfish one, and the little bright smiles on Dan’s face every time he mentions something they should include warms him to the bone. He would be worried about Dan leaving him alone, unloved and lonely, for someone else, if it wasn’t for the fact that with every sentence, Dan bound them closer together, with every page, with every _danandphil, philanddan, meandphil, we us our_ , he let himself be tied.

And Phil, a man, knew something was up. And Phil, just another man, decided to let it go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day the tour ends, you think you could sleep for days and not even care what memes you missed or what funny thing happened while you were under. You are, of course, lying to yourself, but it has been a long few years. You think you are entitled to some hyperbole.

The flight back to London is quiet. Phil is reading one of his horror books, well thumbed around the edges not from his own perusal but the second hand bookstore, the spine bent back and his other hand curled around the pillow.

You stare out the window. It’s been an odd few years. The book is outdated now, and you’re bringing out a new one. _Dan and Phil Go Outside_ , you still snicker over the title.

You aren’t nervous, anymore. Or, rather, you are, but not of the same things you used to be. Phil is turning 30 next year, and instead of your hindbrain freaking out about what you aren’t and all the things that you couldn’t be if Phil was with someone else, you allow yourself a different worry. 

There is a ring in your bag and a question on your lips, one that you bite back every time they open.

The tour, the time- you aren’t sure what, but something changed. Perhaps it was you. Maybe it was Phil. But between the book and the tour and the road, the bed soon became not his but _ours_. You didn’t talk about it beyond carefully constructed whispers in the late hours of the night, as the bus hummed and shuddered over the long roads. You didn’t need to. You had never needed many words, anyway.

So the curtains went up and down and up and you ended it with a kiss or you held each other, breathless, for hours, and you were in each others pockets and you didn’t mind. Everything was young and bright and yet so comfortable. You had the ring in your pocket since Vegas. 

You had bought the first cheap from a pawn store when you thought it was a good idea, when Phil was in the bathroom, yourself alone, a rarity. It was nothing much, impulsive and ill conceived. You woke the next day, dreadfully tired and not fully aware. Sat quietly for a while, staring into the middle distance as you turned it endlessly over in your hands. 

You scribbled out a vague note for Phil and left the bed. You returned several hundred dollars lighter but your pocket heavier than ever.

When the lights went on at the Dolby Theatre, you felt all the ghosts of your childhood surrounding you. You could hear the whispers of drama teachers, names long forgotten, and Shakespeare span around your head with couplets and sestets and _all the world’s a stage_ but this one is yours, yours and Phil’s. An afterthought, you press the ring into your pocket. An afterthought, you do not use it. But it stays in your pocket.

On the plane, a cloud passes by, shaking you out of your stupor, the uninterrupted blue dashed to pieces along with your reverie.

 _There was time_ , you thought, and for the first time since you first thought about how fleeting you were in the grand scheme of things, it felt true. Phil was by your side, there was a ring in your pocket, and there was time, enough, for that.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on my tumblr: https://blazing-ball-of-sunshine.tumblr.com


End file.
